1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a battery power apparatus for a vehicle, and more particularly to a battery power integration apparatus and a HEV power system having the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Because of the environmental awareness today, the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) with energy-saving and low-pollution advantages is increasingly popular. In addition, the HEV is a vehicle which combines advantages of large output power, good endurance, and low noise. Accordingly, the HEV is more competitive to become the mainstream vehicle in the future.
The HEV usually provides a vehicle power control system composed of a 48-volt high-voltage rechargeable battery, a 12-volt low-voltage battery, a DC-to-DC converter, and a battery management system (BMS). The DC-to-DC converter is used to provide the power conversion and the BMS is used to manage the high-voltage rechargeable battery. For the vehicle power control system, the DC-to-DC converter converts the 48-volt high-voltage DC power source into the 12-volt low-voltage DC power source to provide the required power for low-voltage devices or electronic devices inside the HEV. The high-voltage rechargeable battery is composed of a plurality of cells connected in series. The battery management system is used to manage the high-voltage rechargeable battery by detecting temperature and voltage conditions of the cells, and also charge and discharge the cells according to the detected temperature and voltage conditions, thus extending lifetime of the high-voltage rechargeable battery.
Reference is made to FIG. 1 which is a block circuit diagram of a related-art vehicle power conversion system. The vehicle power conversion system mainly includes an electricity generation apparatus 50a, a low-voltage device 60A, a low-voltage battery 40A, a power converter 20A, a fan 30A, and a high-voltage battery control management integration apparatus 10A. Especially, the high-voltage battery control management integration apparatus 10A mainly has a battery control module 101A, a high-voltage battery 102A, a battery management system 103A, and a relay 104A. In particular, the battery control module 101A has a relay control circuit 1011A, a pre-charge control circuit 1012A, and a fan control circuit 1013A.
In this existing system structure, as shown in FIG. 1, the relay control circuit 1011A, the pre-charge control circuit 1012A, and the fan control circuit 1013A are integrated with the battery management system 103A. Hence, an additional power source is needed for the battery control module 101A at the battery management system 103A, thus increasing the overall system costs.
In addition, the power converter 20A is only used to step down the voltage to charge the low-voltage battery 40A or supply power to the low-voltage device 60A in the existing vehicle power conversion system. Also, the power converter 20A is communicated with the battery management system 103A through communication interfaces. Hence, the relay 104A could be slowly tuned off when the abnormal fault occurs because of the limitation of communication delay, thus causing damages of the high-voltage battery 102A and the power converter 20A.
In addition, the on-off and pre-charge controls of the relay 104A and the control of the fan 30A are managed by the battery management system 103A, thus increasing the design complexity of the battery management system 103A.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a battery power integration apparatus and a HEV power system having the same to reduce the number of components, omit the SPI interfaces, simplify the design complexity, and reduce the overall system costs; and also immediately turn off the relay to rapidly execute protection operations and increase the power supply reliability when abnormal conditions of the system occur by integrating the battery control module and the power converter.